


Through the hourglass I saw you

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Twin Swap, Canon Rewrite, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-05-27 22:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6302566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My wife and I will take the boy. We've always talked of adopting a baby boy."</p><p>Leia Skywalker grows up dreaming of becoming a pilot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the hourglass I saw you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lefaym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/gifts).



> I hope you like this!

On night before her tenth birthday, Leia had the dream again. She announced this at breakfast in her serious voice, the one she thought made her sound much older. "I've had the same dream night after night. It's got to mean something." She knew the look being passed between the two adults at the table. She narrowed her eyes. "It must."

"It means no more snacks before bed."

Leia sat back, thinking of her dream: mountains, covered in lush, green grass, beckoning to her from a distance; snow-capped peaks with a promise of cold she'd never known; and deep, still lakes reflecting a perfect blue sky. She knew the names of all these things, knew the shapes of them as well as she knew the dunes surrounding this farm where she'd always lived.

Arguing with Uncle Owen never got her anywhere. "It's a nice dream."

"You need to get your head out of the clouds, young miss." He patted her hair as he stood with his breakfast dishes. Aunt Beru took the chance to share a look with her. She didn't mind hearing about Leia's dreams.

"We should open gifts before you run off," said her aunt.

Leia couldn't stop the grin of incipient greed. Her birthday was the one day that was all about her. On Life Day, they all exchanged gifts with each other and with their friends, and they'd have to spend time visiting Grandmother and Grandfather's gravesite. She wasn't allowed to play all day with her presents. Today she could.

She could even put up with Uncle Owen's usual teasing. "Gifts? We were supposed to give gifts?" Every year.

"Ten is special," said Aunt Beru, knowing when to ignore Uncle Owen's jokes. She dug out a wrapped parcel hidden inside a cupboard Leia never opened. "I asked that nice young woman at the goods supply in Anchorhead to order this for you."

Leia took the parcel, keeping the smile on her face. The goods supply store wrapped gifts that were shipped from elsewhere, but the only things her aunt and uncle ever ordered from the supply catalog were the frilly, silly items on the Your Little Darling pages. It would be another doll. Leia didn't mind the dolls. She set them up around her room and made them fight like armies.

She opened the wrapper, ready to spin a story of how happy she was to have another empty-eyed face, not telling that she would add it to her Clone Trooper side. The box inside didn't have a doll. A perfect replica of an A-style shuttle sat inside the transport foam.

Leia squealed and pulled out the ship. "Thank you!"

Uncle Owen frowned. "They sent the wrong thing again. Beru, you need to have a talk with that woman." Before he could even think about taking away the glorious ship, Leia instantly began flying it around the room with her hand, making zooming noises. "Leia, that's no toy for a young girl."

"It's the best toy," she said, and she kissed him on the cheek, then kissed her aunt. It was possible the ship had been misdirected, and even now, there was some little boy in Mos Espa opening a box with a lace-clad baby doll. But the amused sparkle in Aunt Beru's eyes said otherwise.

* * *

She first met old Ben Kenobi at Tosche Station while she was with Uncle Owen getting his landspeeder serviced. She had no idea who he was at first, and ignored him as she did most of the other boring adults. Dendon the mechanic let her watch the repairs as long as she was out of the way and didn't ask stupid questions. She could ask as many intelligent questions as she liked, such as, "Why does the converter only use a quarter of the charge?"

Outside, Uncle Owen was having an argument. The old man, this was any man over about thirty, kept glancing in where Leia sat, although she was sure the bright glare outside and the cool shadows in here kept her hidden from view. Uncle Owen shook his head, and gestured for the old man to move along.

Two hours later, while her uncle paid for the repairs, Leia snuck away and found the old man, as she'd known she would. "Who are you?"

The brown robe hid his face, though she'd seen it before. "Who wants to know?"

She'd been raised to be cautious of strangers. It hadn't taken. "Leia Skywalker."

She sensed his smile more than saw it. "Call me Ben. It's good to meet you, Leia." He shook her hand as though she was any other adult. "Now go back to your uncle. He'll be worried if you're not along directly."

Leia would risk a scolding. "Who are you really?"

"A friend," he said, and he lost himself in the crowd, which was impressive considering Leia saw only five or six other people here in the street, none of them human.

* * *

Dendon let her work odd hours after she turned sixteen. When Leia wasn't helping out at the farm, she was elbows deep into the guts of some broken down machine absorbing everything she could. Dendon let her take the small ships out for their test runs before returning them to their owners. Uncle Owen wouldn't let her get her pilot's registration until she was eighteen, but that didn't stop her from flying anything she could get her hands on.

"I don't like you going to town so often," said Aunt Beru, fussing over another grease-ruined smock. "Those boys you're seeing aren't nice."

"They're my friends," Leia explained for the millionth time, grabbing her smock. She didn't mind a little dirt. She didn't mind the boys, either. Aunt Beru thought Biggs was sweet on her, and maybe he was. When Leia wore a tighter shirt than she usually liked, Biggs let her drive his 'speeder as they went out. Deak let her take apart his pod for fun as long as she put it back together again even better. The other boys were all right. 

What Aunt Beru meant was that the boys Leia knew weren't good husband material. She thought her niece ought to keep herself single until she met a nice, solid man who would be a helper instead of a wastrel teen. She also wished Leia would take more care for her appearance and not run around with oil stuck under her nails and hair in a permanent tight braid.

Leia didn't care. She had no use for the fairy stories in the books. She wasn't going to spend her days in useless beauty waiting to meet a handsome prince.

"I'll try to be home more often," she said.

Beru touched her hair, smoothing a piece of the braid that had fallen loose. "You won't. Too much of your father in you. He ran off as soon as he could."

Leia hesitated, hoping to uncork a little more detail. Her aunt and uncle rarely mentioned her parents. They were dead, but the graves weren't next to Grandmother Shmi and Grandfather Cliegg. Her father had been a navigator on a spice freighter. Her mother's profession was a mystery. In her imagination, Leia assumed her mother was a pilot, taking on grand missions with her husband before they'd both been killed in the accident that left their baby girl an orphan.

* * *

Everything changed when the droids came.

At first Leia was just annoyed by the prissy-talking golden droid and his astromech friend for ruining her plans. She thawed to them quickly enough, forming a plan in her head. If the droids were helpful around the farm, Uncle Owen wouldn't need her hands here. She could put in her Academy application then hop the next freighter to anywhere.

The hologram stuck in the astromech's databanks came as a bit of a shock. "Who's that?"

* * *

Grandmother Shmi had been killed by Sandpeople. Leia knew to beware their tracks and their traces. A girl alone could run into trouble. A girl not paying close enough attention when she saw them at a distance ran into a lot of trouble.

She came to in an unfamiliar dark room. Fear shot through her, sending a sick jolt through her stomach. Grandmother had been held for weeks.

But the face she saw approach wasn't one of the Sandpeople. Artoo and Threepio waited for her, and Threepio fussed over a detached arm. She'd have to fix him. Her head swam, gradually focusing. She was in a strange man's bed. She wasn't safe, but she was safer than outside. Her eyes locked onto his face. "Ben? Ben Kenobi?"

The old man smiled. "The same. Good thing your head is so hard, eh?" His eyes twinkled in a merry joke only he knew.

Leia stopped being afraid.

The hologram had more to say, now that Kenobi was present. Artoo had known the destination for his message. Leia couldn't take her eyes off the small figure, faintly blue and calmly begging for Kenobi's aid, not for himself, but for the information he'd placed inside this droid. Leia was all for adventure, especially with the cool, good feeling of the lightsaber in her hand, but there were chores to be done.

"I can take you as far as Anchorhead," she said, wondering how she'd explain the loss of the new droids after a single day. Uncle Owen would be furious.

* * *

Tears were for little girls. She didn't have time for them now.

* * *

The smuggler's eyes never went above her neckline. Leia only resisted her urge to belt him by reminding herself he was their ticket off this planet. Ben went round and round with him on price, and Leia couldn't hold her tongue and her fist.

She regretted not belting him when she finally saw the freighter.

Fast, though. She'd give Han's ugly ship that.

* * *

Ben believed in destiny, therefore Leia gave it a good think. Han had no use for it, but even he couldn't explain how they'd managed to be captured by the very same space station where the young man in the hologram was being held. She hadn't been able to get him out of her head ever since she'd seen him standing there, ready to go to his own death for the sake of the Rebellion's freedom.

"They're going to execute him!"

"Better him than us!"

Han wouldn't be persuaded by logic, and he definitely wouldn't be persuaded by an appeal to his better nature. "He's rich." Greed. Greed would do.

Leia would even put up with the man she was rescuing calling her short and yelling at her and Han for their lousy plan. Aunt Beru would be absolutely horrified to find out that minutes after Leia met an actual handsome prince, she managed to get herself coated from head to toe in indescribably disgusting garbage slime. Leia figured that was her usual luck.

* * *

Tears were for very little girls. Leia spent her time in anger, blasting TIE Fighters from pursuing them.

Luke was kind to her and annoyed with Han. She was annoyed with Han, too. She probably should still refrain from punching him. That wouldn't solve the ache in her heart. Luke promised a whole fleet of ships waited for her on Yavin IV, and she could blast as many TIE Fighters as she needed to until she felt better. He may have only known her for a few hours but she felt Luke understood her better than anyone else she'd ever met.

* * *

There were weirder things to hallucinate than the disembodied voice of an old man she'd barely had time to get to know, but blowing up the space station made her feel much, much better.

"You have issues, girl," Han said after they'd all hugged their relief out and Luke had teased Han about coming back.

"I'm a shooting star," she fired back, more than a little high on the adrenaline rush of not dying. Then Chewbacca was lifting her into the air, and Leia was flying.

* * *

The party wound down to a roar by the time Leia got the message. Threepio found her sitting with her back against one wall of the temple, a cup in her hand half-filled with a drink she hadn't touched since the first sour taste hit her mouth. Cup in hand and pleased smile on her face, no one would press her to drink more.

"Mistress Leia, you have been summoned." Leia looked around herself, but no one would miss her. Han had passed out on hour ago, stretched out with his head resting on Chewie's furry leg. Wedge was still dancing. Other pilots whose names she had yet to learn as anything other than callsigns ignored her except when it was time for another toast.

"All right." She stood and stretched. "Where are we going?"

"The Prince has asked to see you in his quarters."

Nerves shot through her as Threepio led her through the labyrinth of the old Massassi Temple. Luke had been given private quarters somewhere up high with a window, not crowded in with the rest of the Rebels in barracks. Han was letting Leia borrow a spare bunk on the _Falcon_ for a few days while things got sorted out, but that was a related problem.

She knew what people thought. She was a farm girl, some naive rube from a backwater planet no one gave a damn about. Spend too much time on Han's ship, and the talk would be that she was his plaything. Instead she followed Threepio to the bedroom of someone she'd been awfully, embarrassingly swoony over ever since that hologram. The talk around the base would have a whole new bone to gnaw.

The door opened. Luke looked up from the table where he sat. "Hi, Leia. Won't you come in? Thanks, Threepio."

"Of course, Master Luke. If you would like, I can summon Artoo and I can regale you with a story while he serves a late dinner for you and your guest."

"That won't be necessary. I think Artoo's in the Command Room. Why don't you go see if he needs any help?"

"I shall do so." Threepio walked past Leia out the door, closing it behind him.

They were alone.

Leia wasn't sure if she was having a bad feeling or a good one, but feelings were definitely involved. She walked closer to the table. Luke greeted her with a friendly grin as he stood. "Sorry. I was looking over plans. We're going to have to move the base, and requisitions are hell."

"Move?"

"The Empire knows where we are. We need to be somewhere else before they come back." He took her hand and squeezed it suddenly. Leia didn't let herself jump or tremble. "Did I ever say thank you for saving my life?"

"I think it was understood." She remembered the press of his lips against her cheek, a friendly peck as they ran through the Death Star.

"Allow me to say the words properly. Thank you." He squeezed again and let go. "Would you like to sit?"

"Sure." Leia took a chair at the small table and looked around herself curiously. His quarters weren't that fancy. A huge wardrobe took up one side of the wall, and the door cracked open just enough to show it was stuffed full of clothes. He had a bed, neatly made, and a table covered with flimsies, and a computer terminal. Other than the clothes, it wasn't much different from her own bedroom back home.

Luke tilted his head and moved to a corner of the room. He also had a small warming plate with a kettle. Steam began to rise, letting the kettle sing to them. "I thought you might like some tea."

"Thanks."

She watched him move through the same kinds of preparations her aunt used to back home, scooping dried leaves into the pot and pouring out the water to release a sweet fragrance. He let the tea steep as he brought the pot back and set it between them with two mugs. "Not the finest tea set, but the drink's good. This is something from back home. There won't be much left anywhere now, so I suppose it counts as a rare delicacy."

Home. They'd been flying through space when Ben felt the death of Alderaan. Luke's whole world had been killed senselessly. "Are you okay?"

She saw his eyes flick up and thought the question too blunt, and she cursed herself. He said, "I'm not okay. I'm angry, and I'm so sad I can't breathe. We won. We gave the Empire a bloody nose and that felt good, but I can't stand to celebrate tonight." His face moved through a range of motions before settling into composure. "You and I were both orphaned two days ago."

Leia sucked in her own breath. She'd been avoiding thinking about the smoking shell of her home, about the poor, burned corpses which were all that remained of the two people who'd loved and raised her as their own. No medals or fanfares or wild festivals could change that, only dull her reaction for a time.

He poured the tea, the rare gift from his destroyed planet. "My father says.... My father used to say that the best way to ease your own burden is to pick up someone else's. If you are all right with it, I'd like to hear about your family."

Leia picked up her mug. The aroma was nothing like the cheap, spicy tea Aunt Beru made. This had floral undertones and a woody bite when she took a polite sip. She knew very little about Alderaan, but it must have had an abundance of plant life, rain soaking the ground, and thick, humid clouds. She could see it in her mind suddenly, clear as day, like the dreams she half-remembered from childhood of snow-covered mountains and deep, inviting valleys.

"It's good. Thank you."

He nodded.

"I...." She didn't know what to say. "I don't remember my parents at all. They died when I was little. Uncle Owen was my father's brother. Half-brother, I think. They don't talk... They didn't talk about him much. He went away from home a long time ago. He was a pilot."

"Like you."

"Maybe. Ben said my father was a Jedi. He knew him." That had been an unexpected connection. Leia longed for details of her own life, but before her new friend could tell her more, he'd died. "I know even less about my mother. I'd like to believe she was a pilot, too. Aunt Beru never said. She only met my mother once."

"Beru raised you?"

Leia nodded. Her heart ached to think about them. "Since I was a baby. They had a moisture farm on Tatooine. Not much to look at. Everything was always breaking down, and the Hutts charged an arm and a leg in tariffs. But we had a home that kept the sand out, and my aunt was the best cook I've ever met. She could scrimp together a meal from a handful of dust and a cup of water."

Luke drank his tea. She wasn't sure he was listening, and she found she didn't mind. "What about your uncle?"

Leia shrugged. "Uncle Owen taught me to work hard. He taught me to drive a landspeeder. He hated my friends and wanted me to dress up like some little princess." She glanced at Luke's mildly offended expression. "Sorry."

"You didn't get along?"

"Don't get a bad idea of him. He never hurt me. He never beat me. He shouted at me when I disobeyed, but plenty of my friends saw the bad side of a strap. I never did. He was a good man. I just don't think he ever knew what to make of me. I wasn't his daughter. He never once thought I could do the same work a boy did, even when I was out there every day alongside the hired hands."

"You know he'd be proud of you right now, don't you? You destroyed a monstrous space station, saving millions of lives."

She sat back. "He wasn't involved in galactic politics. I imagine he'd say 'Young lady, you can't go around blowing up the Empire's weapons. It will only cause trouble.'" She was a poor mimic of his gruff voice but she got the finger-shaking right.

"My family did nothing but galactic politics. My mother was the Queen, and my father served in the Senate until I took over his seat two years ago. Mother said I teethed on peace treaties."

The image was adorable: a little blond boy with his parents' hard work rolled up and stuffed into his mouth like a toy.

"Were they...." She couldn't finish the question.

"Yes. They were on Alderaan when it was destroyed. I held out a little hope before we arrived here. I thought maybe Father could have been called away, maybe Mother found out somehow and ordered an evacuation. When I was waiting in that cell for my execution, I told myself they'd escaped."

He smiled sadly. "They were the best people I knew, and they loved each other so much. They chose each other, which doesn't happen often with monarchies and high-ranking families. I've been engaged since I was eight to a girl I've never met." He set the mug down. "I doubt she or any of her family escaped, either."

She could picture that, too. She'd known this man for barely a day, but she could see him agreeing to political duty. He would have married that sour-faced girl (Leia was not above a bit of private jealousy inside her own head) and acted as a perfect husband and partner because he was told to.

"I can't imagine marrying someone I didn't know."

"I was always a little surprised. Some families would have objected to my background."

Her eyebrows raised. "You're a prince."

"Adopted. There were a lot of orphans from the Clone Wars. My parents couldn't have children of their own. They told me around the time they were arranging the marriage. I had so many questions. I still do. Father knew my birth mother, I'm sure of it, but they never told me anything about my biological father. From the things he said, and the things he didn't think he was saying, I believe she was a girl from a good family, but she got into trouble by some boy she shouldn't have been seeing. Father said she died in labor. My biological father might still be out there, but I don't know his name, or if he ever know about me." He played with his mug. "He may have died two days ago."

"Ben told me Vader murdered my father. I always thought my parents died in a shuttle accident together." She'd grasped a new fact and lost one at the same time. How had her mother died? Had Darth Vader killed her, too? Way too many questions.

"It's funny. I miss my parents so much right now, but I keep thinking, they were the only ones who knew where I came from, and without them, I never will. I lost my real parents, and with them I lost my birth parents, too."

The lightsaber Ben had kept safe for her still hung at her side, and she swore she'd felt his voice inside her as she'd turned off her targeting computer. If he'd been there, he'd been silent ever since. Her own last chance of learning about her parents died with him.

"I'm sorry," she said, and she didn't know who for.

"Thank you." He drank more tea. "There will be more orphans. Not everyone was on the planet when it died. I'm going to work on collecting those I can. After we defeat the Empire, we can think about establishing a new homeland."

"You really think we're going to defeat the Empire?"

"I'm going to make it my business to see that we do." His voice held a firm purpose she envied. He'd been raised to a cause, and trained to make things happen. Leia knew a few flying tricks, and had a half-formed idea that her father might have been more than she'd thought. Luke could step up to be a leader of the Rebellion. She just wanted to fly.

He took her empty mug. "You should go," he said, standing and placing them away.

Leia stumbled to her feet, more than a little confused. "All right. We were talking."

"Yes, and I would love another chance to talk with you whenever you have the time. But the door has been closed for a while, and people gossip. We're both starting a new life here. I've worked with the Rebellion before, but it just became my home. Yours too, if you don't intend to fly off with Han when he goes."

"I'm staying," she said. If nothing else, she'd made that choice already.

"I'm glad." Luke had the best smiles, Leia couldn't help but notice.

"But you want me gone."

"No, I want you to figure out who you want to be before the gossip mill hangs a name on you. We can always use good pilots. We can also use men and women ready to lead people. You're thinking about becoming a Jedi. We could definitely use one of those."

She was being dismissed. She didn't like it.

Leia folded her arms and stood still. "Why did you send your message to Ben?" 

"Father told me there'd come a time when the hour was dark and everything looked bleak, and I should call on General Kenobi. If I told him who I was, he would come no matter what. The little droid would know how to find him." He looked away thoughtfully. Leia wondered if he had ever prodded at the mysterious name of Obi-Wan for his missing father. "I was scared. I thought I was going to die and the plans wouldn't get through to the Alliance. If you hadn't rescued me, I would have died. So I called. And you heard me."

"I'm a sucker for the phrase 'you're my only hope.'"

"Lucky for me, then." His eyes were blue like the sky on his lost world, the sky she'd dreamed of, and they twinkled. "Go figure out who you are, Leia Skywalker, and I'll do my part to keep the rumor mill off your back while you do." He took her hand and bent to kiss her cheek again. Not married, not engaged, definitely cute. Leia turned her head and met his lips. An electric spark shot through her, and from the startled look on his face, he felt it too. 

Rumors, though.

"Thanks for the tea," Leia said. "Good night." She let herself out, and paused for a moment alone in the corridor outside, feeling the uncomfortably fast beat of her heart.

* * *

Han Solo might have been the most infuriating man on this or any other planet, but he was bright enough to be the first to point out Luke and Leia shared the same birthday, two days after Empire Day.

"I don't like talking about it," Luke said. "We celebrated my adoption day as my birthday. I didn't even know until I was eight that I was a week and a half older than I thought I was."

Han didn't do birthdays, therefore Luke and Leia decided he had to share with them

"This is dumb," Han said.

"You were going to make us do it," Leia pointed out, shoving the small slab of cake his way.

"That's because you're both funny when you're mad. I'm not funny. I'm just mad."

Then Chewie began singing the traditional Wookiee birthday song, and that was that.

* * *

Luke had his own ship, which carried him and his belongings, and a large chunk of the command staff. Leia had her X-wing, and despite all his claims to be leaving them any day now to go pay off that price on his head, Han kept tagging along in the _Falcon_. They set up their own private chat channel, which Leia prayed the other command staff never listened in on. They talked between star systems, and told filthy jokes. Han insisted Leia and Luke both learn Shyriiwook because he was tired of translating. 

They almost died a lot. That made surviving just a little bit sweeter.

Leia practiced with her lightsaber whenever she could. She only only knew about the Jedi from old legends. Han wasn't so sure about this, but Luke encouraged her. "Think of it like this. You're the best Jedi we have."

"We're in trouble," Han would say, because he enjoyed making Leia scowl at him.

She wasn't sure when the two of them became her best friends. She was only sure that she liked stealing the occasional sparkling kiss from one, and she couldn't picture her life without the other one there to give her grief.

The rumor mill wondered if she was sleeping with either one. Luke's advice had been good on that account. Leia kept from giving the gossip anything solid to grist over, and after a while, the gossipers grew bored and looked away.

* * *

Hoth was cold. The ice settled into her bones every time she rode out on one of those hairy beasts they'd tamed, and she didn't feel warm again until hours later on the base, and 'warm' was a relative term. The barracks sported heated blankets, which was more than she could say for the _Falcon_. Han had to keep her on low power. Luke had his own quarters, but every morning over breakfast, his skin looked as chilled and blue as Leia's felt.

"Ice walls," he said sensibly when she asked why he didn't splurge on turning the heat up.

Leia shivered deeper into her jacket. She had to go out on patrol soon.

* * *

Delirium from a punch by an ice monster was the only explanation of why she could suddenly hear Ben's voice in her head. But what was Dagobah, and why did she have to go there?

Her fingers were too cold to feel, and Dagobah didn't matter. She'd die out here, freezing into the glacier. No Jedi left.

She was conscious enough to feel Han touch her broken face and wounded neck to check her vitals, and she felt him take her lightsaber. And then she felt nothing for a long, long time.

* * *

The med bay was kept at a higher temperature than the rest of the base. If Leia was going to feel like hell and wonder how many of these scars were permanent, she'd be warm at least. That must be why her friends visited her so often. Luke's dear worried face doted over her, even if he and Han were having some kind of argument they weren't sharing.

Aunt Beru had warned her to stay away from boys.

She lay back, folding her hands behind her head. "All right. I'll ask. What are the two of you being stupid about?"

They turned from their not-argument to her. Luke said, "It's nothing."

"Oh, it wasn't nothing." She thought he would say more, but Han glared at Luke silently.

Something had passed between them, even she could tell. She wasn't the only one who enjoyed watching Luke smile. Luke, bless him, could talk his way through a negotiation with a planetary potentate to give the Alliance safe passage through any system he could name, but he shut down like a slamming blast door when it came time to talk about his heart.

Leia convinced the med droids into releasing her a few hours later. Her body was fine, she pointed out, and she'd have someone there to keep an eye on her. Then it was just a matter of getting Chewbacca on her side, and he adored her. "Tell him in twenty minutes that he needs to be there. Make sure he goes inside."

She knew Luke would be back from his shift with the command crew, and she knew the keycode access to his quarters. When he arrived, he was alone, thank goodness, and only saw her after the door was shut.

Luke's mouth popped open. "Leia. Um. Hi." His eyes turned from her, although there was nothing he could see with the covers pulled up over her body. "What are you doing?"

"Changing the rules." She pulled back the covers, giving him something to avoid looking at. Her feet were icy cold on his floor as she padded over and took his hands. "Tell me you've never thought about this, and I'll tell you you're a liar." She tiptoed up and kissed his turned-away face. "Luke."

He turned to her and held her shoulders as he kissed her fully, mouth open against hers. The familiar scattering energy passed between them, warming her. He broke the kiss and breathed hard. "I won't lie. I'll never lie to you." She kissed him again but found herself pushed away. "I do want this, but that doesn't mean we should. You're important to me as a friend. I don't want this to complicate things, and I don't want you to get hurt, and I can't see any path that won't lead to both."

"Am I only important to you as a friend?" His quarters were freezing.

"No," and the admission changed something in his face.

The door to his quarters opened, and Han said, "I don't like getting summoned, Your Worshipfulness. Whoa." He put on a nervous, uncomfortable smile and backed away. Leia stepped away from Luke and grabbed hold of Han's shirt before he could leave. She yanked him inside and smacked the door panel to close it.

"Sorry," Han said, "I obviously came at a really bad time."

"Yes," said Luke.

"You're just in time," said Leia. She tugged Han to her, dragging him down for a kiss, which clearly shocked the hell out of him. They'd grabbed a friendly kiss here and there, nothing more than a gleeful peck celebrating not dying again. This was different. For one thing, Leia was naked and seriously, this place was a freezer. Did Luke never turn on the heater at all?

Luke asked, "What's going on?"

"I'm tired of the three of us scurrying around. I'm tired of you two arguing because you want to go to bed with each other and neither wants to blink first and admit it. I'm tired of freezing cold when there's a very good means for us all to warm up."

She stepped away from them backwards until she reached the bed. Leia sat down, cursing the cold which had already moved into the sheets. She sat with her hands together and her knees spread, hearing her inner parental figures chide her for not being ladylike, for being wanton, for chasing after men.

Leia glanced from one to the other. "It doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to mean something. It can just be warmth. We can be friends later."

"I don't think we can," said Luke.

"Then we'll be something else. Kiss him. You know you want to. Everyone knows you want to."

"Everyone?" asked Han with a frown.

"Go on. I won't even look if you're uncomfortable." Sitting naked on her friend's chilly bed, Leia primly shut her eyes.

She heard them whisper another argument, which didn't last long. She peeked. Satisfied, she pulled herself onto the bed and under the covers which still had a lingering remnant of heat from before. In a few moments, a warm body slid into bed behind her and wrapped strong arms around her body. Han.

"You sure about this?"

"I'd make a bad joke about how I owe you, but no. I'm sure." She leaned back and kissed him, waiting for Luke to deal with the complicated fastenings of his own fine clothes. He was just as pretty naked as she'd suspected. She watched him over Han's firm shoulder, and saw him move to the other side of the bed. She was enveloped by warmth on both sides.

"How is this going to work?" Luke asked her, a serious expression on his handsome face. Leia kissed him, enjoying the tingling flow from his mouth, in the hands that reached for her, and the wary yet hopeful look on his face. Han's hands found her waist and his face found her hair, kissing into her head his deep gratitude that Leia was alive, was recovered, was here. She remembered what he'd told her the night she'd almost died while he held her in the deep cold.

She would have to go to Dagobah. She knew it in her chilly but warming bones. Not tonight, though, and not tomorrow.

"Let's find out." Anything could happen from here, she thought. Anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel: [When the mirror crashed I called you](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7248439)


End file.
